


Word Burgers

by Tyellas



Series: History is hard to know [5]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Environmentalism, Gen, Gun Violence, Hopeful Ending, Miscarriage, Other, Psychological Horror, Sexual Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-17
Packaged: 2018-04-03 10:32:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4097674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyellas/pseuds/Tyellas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where did Max's wanderings take him? Were all the War Boys -always- boys? How did Furiosa stake her claim to the Citadel? Have some word burgers. Chapters are vignettes/short pieces, this is now complete! Final updates: Chapter 6: Dreams Made Flesh - The People Eater's thoughts and the Wasteland's economies of human flesh. Ew gross! Warnings! Chapter 7: Bounty - Furiosa claims the Citadel, and Max seeks an reward. Chapter 8: The Last Page - An alliance is formed at last. And how the History Man came to know the story of the Wives and Miss Giddy. Both a book and a body share the same handwriting...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Lost Art

**Author's Note:**

> _A series to frame the Mad Max shorts I can't help writing. Chapters are vignettes/short pieces._

The History Man appreciated his new position. The weight of each book in his hands, thick and thin, satisfied his bones. The books themselves, trundled out of the Dome to where he sat by a hundred willing hands, were as much of a jumble as he’d expected. “Mills and Boon – wordburgers. Daughter of the Billabong – hm, maybe something there. Our Bodies, Ourselves – why isn’t this down in the Organic Garage?” He put it in the smallest pile. “Snugglepot and Cuddlepie – more wordburgers.”

He cast a low glance at his putative supervisor. But Corpus Collosus was slumped in his mechanized chair, his twisted body sweating , eyes remote. Corpus was the last in the Citadel to wear Immortan Joe’s skull pendant, and he idly fingered its chain. Only the History Man’s literary dismissals made Corpus return to the present to ask, “What’s a wordburger?”

“Leftover phrases from the Before Time that stick in the mind. Even when their meaning is ground away. Here ‘s some. “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree. Snake eyes in the paradise, and we got to go today. Brother Pele in the back, sweet Zina in the front, cruising down the highway in the hot, hot sun. Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty-four? The boy stood on the burning deck, whence all but he had fled. Ka mate, ka mate, ka ora, ka ora! Send her victorious, happy and glorious, long to reign over us. Hasta la vista, baby.” Wordburgers, the lot of them. If you know where they come from, if you put them all together, they may tell a story.”

Corpus’ exhalation was between a snicker and a sigh. “They’re treating me like one of those wordburgers there. Take me around in the morning to ensure the pumps and plants are good, then put me back in this room with you. Are you here to learn what I know before they toss me out to the Wretched?”

The History Man replied, “No. I could never learn all that you know. My head is too full of stories and wordburgers. You’ve got the real knowledge and the black thumb. You know too much.”

“Yes! I’m valuable. Whether they like it or not.” His reedy voice breaking, Corpus sucked on his oxygen tube.

“You’re more valuable than you’ve ever been. Because all of us are.”

Corpus didn’t take this in. “My brothers are dead. My family. And without my family, I’m a thing, a mutant, a cog in the Citadel’s machine. I haven’t been out since they died.”

“You used to go out?”

Gimbals and wheels whirred as Corpus directed his seat towards the balcony’s view. “Rictus would take me along. To Gastown when Da – for negotiations. I’d keep the People Eater honest. On the trip back, we’d go driving, offroad. Under the full moon, fast as we could go.”

The History Man took a moment to digest the only kindness he’d ever heard linked with the name of Rictus. Finally, he said, “I can’t take you down there yet.” _Because you’d be torn apart in two minutes._ “But I owe you something for what you share with me. Only us History People have the art of conversation any more. Us, and you.”

Corpus laughed, once. “That’s for sure! Those women hardly talk to me, but I watch them, and they aren’t talking much to anyone. They just _do_.”

The History Man promptly diverted the conversation from his benefactors. “I can tell you everything about it, outside. Did your family tell you? Or were they holding it back?”

Corpus was quiet before he said, “I’ll bite. Holding what back? What have you got?”

“I walked a long way about to come here. I can tell you how bad it was, in all the world. Why the Citadel and what you do here is so important. You’re a man. I can tell you anything?”

More whirring, as Corpus turned back to face him, eyes on fire. “I Joe-damn hope so!”

“You truly want to know? It’s grim. Even some who lived through it can’t hear it told again.”

“I was born bad news. Go on, try and shock me.”

The History Man began.


	2. Beached As

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Mad Max learns the hard way why humanity clings to the wastelands, not the shorelines._

He had hoarded gasoline and water, leafed through a fragmenting paper map book to find his destination. The shoreline of a former national park looked all right. Far away from the overdressed lunatics that were left of humanity. He vaguely remembered fish. Seaweed. Mussels? He’d dig in the mud for some beach protein. Some peace.

Max saw the ocean against the horizon, a hazy gray line . The road that plunged through declining hills to the shore was in surprisingly good condition. It was an echo of the joy driving used to be, the purr of the road, quiet in his head. Even the fierce red rocks of the desert striped out into gentler tones, lighter earth and occasional scrub.

Driving to the sea! Why hadn’t he thought of this before?

Well. This was why.

This unimagined new wasteland opening up for him.

He had time to brake before the road’s collapse. “Fuck,” he whispered. (In this world, nobody said _fuck_ any more: if you could fuck, if you had the energy, you were top of the heap. Nobody said _shit_ either, as a curse. If you had shit, you’d had tucker in you before, and you had something to dry and save for fuel now.)

The asphalt crumbled off into a steep new shoreline of tumbled rocks. Some past tsunami had chewed the coast into pale, raw new cliffs. Cautiously, he left the car, stamping the ground around it to make sure it was solid, then progressing to the edge. He looked down at leaden water, swilling heavily around stained grey stones. Amorphous sheets of black algae slimed rocks, wavered in the depths. Some battered plastic clotted the high tide mark. The scene pulsed with heat reflected from the cliffs. One waning moon of sand clung to the shoreline, a remnant beach. There were no gulls.

His darting glance sought something, anything, to deny that humanity had killed the sea.

On the sand, there was a twinkle, a glimmer that changed. Didn’t streams go down to the sea? He scrambled down the blocks of stone to see if, despite his foreboding, this might be the last refuge.

The moon-sliver of beach was further away than he thought, a tiresome clamber over the rocks. Reaching it, the flats and dunes spread wider than he’d expected.

Where the dunes lowered, sure enough, a stream trickled down to a baylet. But it cut through the pale sand to reveal sooty ripples: layers of pollution or fallout. There would be no drinking from that dead water. More brightness caught Max’s eye. In the middle of the whitish dunes reared something even whiter, more vivid, feeding his compulsion for hope.

A boat? A sail he could salvage?

No, no boat. The last of a beached whale. Its bones were large enough to endure two or three sweeps of terrible weather. The contours of life remained: an arched spine long as a tanker truck, a tumble of ribs vast as a starving man’s hunger, the skull, longer than his own body, a magnificent, reproachful sweep.

What had he been supposed to do? He hadn’t drilled oil, sold water, pressed those nuclear buttons.

Suddenly, _she_ was there. The flickering, vivid shadow of Glory, kneeling beside the whale skeleton. The girl reached one small glowing hand to touch the skull as she chirped, "Beached as! Beached as, bro! Remember?" Her giggle was awful. Then she stood.

Her eyes filled his world.

“Go home, Max,” she whispered. “Go home.”

She extinguished as swiftly as she’d appeared.

The light dulled. A cold breath came off the sea, shifting the sand slightly, revealing its darker layers.

It was a long dry way back up to the car. He forced himself to take it slow and careful, with his bad knee. No use over-exerting himself until the car was in sight. Then he was inside in seconds, revving the coughing engine over the rise.

Fleeing the dead waters and the false gleams, freeing his last hope to roll in the sands.


	3. Mods Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _War Pups become War Boys in the Citadel - even if they didn't start out as boys._

The three war pups slipped down the reeking corridor, each carrying an empty bucket. Picking up the full buckets of urine, used to make gunpowder and tan hides, was going to be gross, but today the oldest War Pup had said they'd get to see something special as they worked. Before their destination, a queue of War Boys started to fill a stone hallway, jostling and joshing. The pups had their buckets, so nobody stopped them squirming to the front of the line, into the Organic Mechanic’s Blood Shed.

The tallest pup pulled the other two forwards. “This is Mods Day! The Organic Mechanic fixes your body mods if you did your Citadel work.”

“Chrome!” breathed one pup.

"He does it every thirtieth day so he doesn't get us asking all the time."

The smallest one was silent and goggle-eyed. There was so much to see!

The walls were lined with saws, straitjackets, restraints, and sheets of scarification flash. Some blood bags, eyes wide with fear, were hanging in their cages, watching the War Boys, who had their own distractions.

Along the waiting War Boys, a pallid med strutted, with a spray of hair and goggles. Another med with a tray followed. “T-shots, A-shots! Who needs to get ripped?” The War Boys waved, then dropped trou so the quick needle could sink into the deepest muscle, to laughter and ribbing.

“The A-shots make you all muscled and the T-shots get you all riled. Even if you have the Lumps or you’re at the end of your half-life,” said the pup’s guide. “You can’t get them ‘till you’re a War Boy.”

In the middle, under a blaze of lights, was the Organic Mechanic himself, wearing his big apron, sweating and laughing loudest of anybody. Forgetting everything else, the smallest pup slipped up to the lights. There, on a big table, one of the War Boys was lying down. Unusually, the War Boy had a big apron on of his own, with tools in the pockets. He sat up and peeled down the top of the apron to show where the skin-white and occasional lump stopped and two lines of stitches marched below his flat nipples. The little one gasped. Such a chrome mod! 

“Right. Let’s see. A good heal. Good job staying clean. ’ll just rip ‘em out and you can white up again in seven days. No more Milking Room jokes for you, huh?” With a manic grin and a flourish, Organic's plump, fast hands flew. There was only a little blood. As a finisher, he slapped his handiwork.

“Up the ass, Organic,” groaned his patient, sitting up happily.

“Is that a date? “

“Nah, just tell me when you need that wiring done. Where’s the mirror?” Without help, the War Boy loped over to it, followed by his admiring shadow.

He was inspecting the work when he saw the pale little face in the mirror behind him. He turned.

“Hello. I’m gonna be a War Boy and die histrionic,” the pup said, somberly.

His face convulsed, but he managed not to laugh. “I just bet you are. Did your Mum send you here?”

The pup nodded. “I saw the War Boys and I said I wanted to be one. You have the cars and weapons and nobody messes with you. And you have cars. I love cars. Mum said it was For The Best.”

“I can see why you made it up. Some of the brats from out there, they can barely string a sentence together, these days.”

As Organic adjusted a light, it swept across the pup. The length of the pup’s lashes, the curve of the pup’s body, gave the War Boy pause. His brow creased, and he knelt down. In a low voice, he said, “Were you – always – a boy?”

The pup went rigid with fear. Hiding being a not-boy had gone so well, it was horrible to have it guessed so easily. The War Boy lifted his hands. “It’s okay, it’s okay! I didn't use to be a boy, either."

The pup, wisely, stayed still and silent. The War Boy went on. "It don’t matter, here. It’s in your blood, if you're a Boy. Just work hard and earn those shots and you’ll grow up to be a War Boy, too.”

“Really?” the pup whispered. “And the…” The pup gestured at the War Boy’s chest.

“Yeah. The finishing touch.” 

“Gotta earn it?”

“Yeah. Come by and see me in the Wire Box. Ask for Jumper. I’ll get you an apron. Helps you keep private till you get the shots.” The pup had no idea what the man meant, but nodded, definitely planning to see this new hero again.

The tallest pup came over. “Come on! We gotta get the full buckets!”

The little pup lifted his fist to the War Boy, who gave him a bump. “Witnessed! Seeya, boy!”

The heavy, stinking bucket he had to carry out didn’t matter at all. He was a boy and he'd seen what to do to be a War Boy, too. “Die histrionic!” he murmured, happily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Gunpowder bucket = Bucket of urine, being saved for use in making explosives.  
> This was in response to a Max Max kink meme prompt! http://madmaxkink.dreamwidth.org/450.html?thread=391362#cmt391362


	4. The Afterwife

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Immortan Joe has discarded many Wives - and one of them tries her luck at the Bullet Farm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS! Violence, women in reproductive slavery, madness masquerading as civilization, and a constant scent of blood. SKIP THIS IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE.  
> *  
> *  
> *  
> This was originally inspired by a prompt on the MadMaxDarkfic-EXTREME thread.  
> *  
> *  
> *  
> Still reading? Okay then!

It was a blessing that her miscarriage started at night.

She woke up with a start, realizing that her bed was wet. Touching herself, she smelled blood. A quickly lit lantern confirmed her misfortune.

She moved around her corner of the Vault slowly, braiding her hair, forcing on the ancient plimsolls she had worn when they took her up. When her other possessions were readied in a small bundle, she shook the nearest Wife awake.

“I lost it.”

The other woman pushed back her tumble of satiny curls and blinked. “I saw you light the lantern. Your third…” she said, mournfully.

“My bed is full of blood.”

“We could hide it – “

“No hiding it. I used the sheets to clean myself up.” She cast a glance at the soiled single bed, then lifted her plimsoll-shod foot. “I’m ready.”

The other wives were roused one by one. Six came out: the one in the private chamber with Immortan Joe was left alone. There were eight Wives now: there would be seven in a few hours. And what would become of her?

The eight Wives had bribed their servants to find out what happened to the Wives that left. For only three had borne children that Immortan Joe, their lord and master, found passable. Three failures, and you were a Wife no more. If, your final try, you had carried a child or stillborn to term, it was a straight road to the Milking Room. Those whose last miscarriage left them dry, or who never even quickened, were cast out among the Wretched. And what of them then? More than one had been torn apart within a day. There was a standing offer from Gastown that made them shudder. Their oldest servant said firmly that one of the outcasts was working her way up the war ranks. The still-Vaulted Wives at that time dismissed this as wishfully untrue.

As the dawn pearled, each of them silently gave her an embrace and the Wives’ parting gift. This came from the only possessions they all received equally: the white fabric they wore. Even her rival gave her a grudging scrap and a shoulder pat. The most pregnant Wife gave her a whole sarong. She thanked each with a touch and put the scrap to immediate use as a hair tie.

This done, the other Wives started to melt away. They sought corners far from what was might happen when Immortan Joe emerged. Curls stopped and whispered, “Go to the pool. Drink as much as you can hold.”

That was where she was, when Immortan Joe opened his chamber door.

*******

She’d expected more shouting and screaming and shoving. But once she’d been yanked from the Vault, there was a lot of waiting. There had been a perfunctory berating by Joe, ending with his contemptuous dismissal. Then a stone-faced Imperator had taken her through dark corridors to a grubby man. Following a probing examination, he confirmed she was pregnant no more, that there was nothing salvageable. She was an empty vessel. She was out.

This involved more waiting, in a cavern that opened to the outside. A blast of heat and dust wiped away the years. She was a frightened girl again as she peered down. Such crowds of people milling below! Far more than there had been fifteen hundred days ago, when she had ascended. Finally, a passel of men came to the cavern, and the Citadel's machinery sprang into motion. On the platform at last, the sway of the descent made her queasy.

Even before the platform thudded down, those below were pointing at her and calling to her.

“Hey! Hey! I take you Gastown, hey? They like you!”

“You gonna make it a party? Like the last one did?”

“That one didn’t make it no party, she didn’t last.”

“Wife! You touched the Immortan! Bless me!”

She shut down the leers and yells and sobs to stick with the others leaving the platform. Their destination was a trio of grinding vehicles flanked by four motorcycles. They were manned by grimy toughs encased in goggles and wraps. The cyclists terrified her, too, but she had to choose fast. She picked out the least-encased of the lot, at the rear of the last vehicle, as her target. “Where are you going?”

“Bullet Farm.”

Not here and not Gastown! “Take me and I’ll swap with you.”

His eyes hid behind goggles, but his mouth was exposed, and she saw it tighten. “What’s with the death wish? Gastown’ll take you.”

“They’ll take me, all right! I was warned about that place.” She brandished the sarong. “Swap this for the ride.”

Involuntarily, he rubbed his chapped mouth. “No water! No food! Just the ride!” He reached out a gloved arm.

Hauled up and dumped onto warm metal, she was promptly shoved down. “Stay there. Give me that.” Immediately, the sarong became his face-scarf. The only other thing he said to her the whole jolting, wind-whipped journey was, “You better wrap, too.”

She did not see the flat lands rolling by. Being a Wife had seemed so shiny. Sometime after the second miscarriage, she’d gone numb. Last night she had been pampered and plotting, thinking she had a few more months, or that she might even succeed. Now, against the odds, she was alive, but what was she running to? Once, she had glimpsed the Bullet Farmer. Did he already have a pretty for his bed? She wouldn’t be fit to offer herself for two weeks, if other men were as fastidious as Joe. Perhaps not ever. She’d hide instead. Yes. If she could get away from being a Wife, she could work for food. She hid her face in her arms, feeling every inch bleeding, dirty, hollow-hearted.

*******

Their arrival jolted her. Already? An officious character bustled down the returned caravan, repeating, “Any extras? Any hitchers? Any extras? To the Farmer now, while it’s Justice Hour.”

Goggles dragged her up. “Got a hitcher!”

“Wait! What’s Justice Hour?”

Goggles paused. “I thought you knew …This is the Bullet Farmer’s place. Mining, manufacturing. Once a day he says what’s what and puts newbies through the Scales. The work here chews folks up like a gun chews bullets. So he’ll take anyone who makes it past his Scales. If you’re found hiding, you’re target practice. You’re lucky you don’t have to wait a whole day for the Hour. Go, fast.”

She found herself one of four lined up outside a curved metal building. Two old people, deepest brown and wizened, holding each other’s hands desperately. Herself. And a towering man, dressed like a fighter, grilled red and cancerous by the sun. His left ear was swollen shut by a black-cored growth. This didn’t stop him from leering at her when he caught her staring. His voice was an evil rasp. “Like what you see?” He licked his lips, obscenely. “I’ll see you later.” She flinched.

They were ushered in by the officious presence, who promptly abandoned them. After the mob of Wretched earlier, or Immortan Joe in his underwear, the aquiline Bullet Farmer, in his khakis and bandoliers, wasn’t bad-looking. Until he grinned, revealing a corrupt fence of teeth. Was there even a gleam of metal in there? His eyes, as black as her own, were sunken and lifeless. She looked away, lest he, too, see desire in her glance.

“So. You seek the refuge of the Bullet Farm. Two meals a day and liter of water – if you heard that, it’s true.” He paused, then yelled, “And you will earn it! No stupid fighting, no waste, no shirking. This is a civilized place. I don’t care who you were before--” a glare, just for her, “ --or what you did.” Another glare for the fighter. “If you want to be worthy of the Bullet Farm, where death grows, you must make it through one trial. One chance to see that you are just and fortunate. This is no place for the unlucky.”

The Bullet Farmer gestured to the oldest man. “You! Come here!” Confused, he stepped up.

From within his khaki shirt, the Bullet Farmer drew an antique black pistol. He cocked open its chamber, and tilted it. Nothing came out. From his breast pocket, he took one shining bullet, and fitted it to a solitary chamber. Then he clicked the pistol whole and spun the chamber. For a moment, the gun purred. “What is justice? This bullet knows. Kneel before me and be weighed on the scales of Justice.”

Ashen, the man went to his knees, submitting to the pistol’s muzzle at his temple. There was only a click.

“Now you.” He did not spin the gun’s chamber again.

The old woman followed, lips trembling.

Again, nothing.

The soldiers stepped to haul the shaking woman away, leaving her up against the Bullet Farmer, alone.

She braced herself for terrible intimacy as she knelt, unconsciously graceful, for this insanity. The Bullet Farmer’s crotch was armored with neutralizing leather. With her eyes straight ahead, she saw no bulge, no swell, no sign of manhood there. Just Immortan Joe’s skull sigil. There was no escape.

When the cold, small muzzle pressed against her temple, she closed her eyes.

She heard the _click_. And then her following breath.

In a dream, she stood and went to the side of the other survivors. From this new vantage point, the fighter looked smaller and alone.

The soldiers had their hands on their rifles. She could see the Bullet Farmer’s fearsome grin in profile. “Well, mate? The door’s behind you if you’re not as brave as two shielas and a blackfella!”

Bleached as death beneath his sunburn, he stepped up and lowered his head.

The shot blasted through it.

Beside her, somebody gagged. Her womb leapt, the blood of one failed life calling to another.

The Bullet Farmer sighed deeply and touched the pistol over his heart. “The bullet always knows.” He glanced at them one last time. “The first two – road and detritus duty. And the lucky third – the factory, for now. Justice. Hour. Is. Done.” The soliders beside him clicked their heels and stamped their rifle butts to the floor.

She stumbled out in hot tears, overwhelmed by the day of threats and violations. She knew her bleeding had started up again. A brown hand took her arm. “There, there, lovey. These big men. The world ended, it did. And now they end the world in little ways, just to prove they’re still alive.”

The officious person was waiting outside the building. Goggles was loitering too, and he stood up straighter when he saw her. “You made it! Got your tags? There’s food and water soon, at the Mess Hall. I’ll show you where.”

The two oldsters chuckled. “Gettin’ in first, eh, bro? Look after her! That was hard, in there.”

She thought of Immortan Joe, and the Wives’ little world in the Vault. The little worlds Joe ended, again and again, at his say-so. Was it worth men like him and the Bullet Farmer? To get to be human, for a while?

“What’s your name?” Goggles asked.

She put aside Huan-Li, China Girl, Watchful. “You can call me Lucky Third.”


	5. Blue Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two souls find each other in the increasingly harsh Wasteland, and a blue-eyed boy takes his first steps towards the Citadel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fanfic for both the Mad Max:Fury Road movie and Issue 1 of Vertigo's Mad Max comics series, where we get a glimpse of Nux's parents.

Johnny Toughfoot gazed up at the night sky, frowning. The seven stars of the Pleiades had risen. He’d been walkabout three moons down the ranges, and still no sign of that Citadel.

To stay warm, he kept going from dusk to night. No need to stop with a full moon. And if it was true that the Citadel still had the lights on, he’d see it in the dark. He figured it was too good to be all true, cars and lights and doctors and gushing water. He’d settle for some water, some food, and some mates. That was all. His satchel bumped his side, too light, even if he still had his boots and Dad’s jacket and probably the world’s last CamelBak.

Quietly, one man on foot, he strode along, sweeping the ground before him with a long piece of rebar, weapon and walking stick in one. The stony hills to his left deepened and softened, dented with gentle darkness.

Plants!

There was a gully lined with acacia shrubs and a few not-quite-dead trees. A bush path through the trunks took him to a sandy hollow of water, with the dust disturbed beside it. Little feet. Wallaby, he guessed. It had been years since he’d seen one. Mouth watering at the thought of meat, he found a shrub that would do as a hunter’s hide. And waited.

Sure enough, something stepped to the water at dawn. Johnny wasn’t far gone enough to think _this_ was hunter’s meat. She was as slender and dusty as the shrub leaves. A tall girl? A small woman? Her hair was thin and matted, and the rags she wore might have, once, been black. She cupped up water with her hands, then filled a dented container. His plan to stay still and silent was undone when she gazed up with the biggest, bluest eyes he’d ever seen.

He rustled a branch, on purpose.

She stayed frozen while he arose. Immediately, he began gentle chatter. “Johnny Toughfoot’s my name. I was up North. A little place, out bush. The family went there before things ended. I was so small, I don’t remember being anywhere else. The local people were good mates, eh. The gangs came in, so we went proper bush. Then all my folks died, and the last local people. I’m just passing through. Who’re you?” He stopped abruptly, feeling himself a lonely fool.

The flood of words had sent her eyes wide. Talking took her several starts. “Me, ‘m Blue Gum, daughter of Chardonnay. My clan…Mum said we had a clan.” Blue Gum hung her head. “I’m not saying it good. S’been so long.”

“What happened with yours?”

“Black storms. We were hungry. Then raiders. War Boy men. They took the mums. The mums told us to run. I ran, and I ran, and then I couldn’t find the others.” Her eyes were pained at the remembrance.

“I ain’t a raider. I’m another.” When she nodded, he said, “Mind if I stay a few days? I’ll just hunt up some meat from the hills.”

“Th’ water’s good,” she said.

He took that as a yes.

Blue Gum wasn’t much of a talker. Johnny found out that she didn’t even know that she was named after a tree. She was clever, though, with knacky hands. If she had forgotten her lost Clan’s words, her hands remembered everything. About edible grubs, and digging water, and caching seeds and fruits for the dry months.

Blue Gum traded him a tasty seed mash for lizard fillets. She didn't mind when he called her just Blue, or Blue Eyes. Then, with desert suddenness, the acacias bloomed yellow. Blue Gum showed him how to dip the flowers in water to sweeten it, and he kissed the gold pollen dots from her fingers while she gasped and quivered. By the time the flowers had turned to seed pods, she had agreed to one bed in the gully. “Love,” she laughed. “All your fault with your words! Now I say them, too.” He teased her, drew her stories out of her, told her his life twice over, but he never said “Citadel.” Why bother? Some food, some water, a mate. No gangs. That was all right.

He was amazed when this skinny scrap of a woman conceived very quickly. “Must be all those seeds, eh?” On the cold mornings, he climbed the hills, to club the warped lizards and two-headed snakes that sunned themselves. He never did find a wallaby. "I'll be back," he always said, just like his own father had. She wore one snake-skin belt proudly, then two at the same time, and then none at all the next time the Pleiades shone.

Johnny fretted himself before the baby was born. Blue Gum had never seen the twisted bad births a woman could have, and gave birth without fear. To both of them, their baby seemed better than normal, whole and pale. The infant enchanted Johnny immediately with blue eyes just like his mother’s. “He’s your son. He’ll have clever hands, like you. Blue Gum’s gumnut!”

Blue Gum laughed. The name stuck. Gumnut. Sometimes just Nut.

The next two rounds of acacia bloom and pod seemed to fly. “This is the best season I’ve seen,” said Blue Gum. “The best years,” Johnny agreed. Occasional rain made the hills plentiful, by the wasteland’s sparse standards. But that meant more travelers were about.

Blue Gum astonished him the first time the roaring of wheels came. She sent him and their son to the dugout, while she took a thick twist of leaves and roots, weighted with a stone. This, she tossed into their shallow water, scattering innocent floating leaves on top, before she sprang in beside them. Johnny gripped his rebar. Were they from…the City? The Citadel? From their dugout, they heard farting engines, cracking shrubs, heavy feet. The stamping men drank, but then complained that the water made their mouths numb. Next, their stomachs cramped. When one of them staggered, they emptied the water containers they had filled and left, cursing.

They waited until the light was well changed before they ventured back out. Blue Gum plucked the bundle back out. “We’ll be thirsty today.”

“Blue. If you’d seen me first, instead of me seeing you, would you have done that?”

Blue Gum looked remote. “It’s our water now.”

The second time, when they hid from vehicles, all they heard was an argument about whether or not the spring was bad. The water went untested. Third time, when they heard a roar on the wind, Johnny felt like they had a plan. He retrieved the toddling Gumnut and said, “Gonna do the water thing, Blue?”

Blue Gum stood frozen, sapphire eyes wide. “It’s not…not raiders. Listen.” The roar was pitching up to a howl. “It’s a storm! A black storm!” They both ran for the dugout.

Day turned into night as winds lashed and lightning cracked. Red dust blinded them, then black silt that burrowed everywhere. Blue Gum howled like the storm, “No, no, no. Not again! Not now!” Gumnut cried with her, and would not quell when she tried to cover his baby mouth against the silt with her rags.

Finally, the wind’s last wail died away. Blue Gum dashed out to check the shrubs and water. Johnny heard her keening. He had to hold Gumnut hard to keep him from chasing down his mother in the black dust. “Good boy. Stay with Dadda.”

She came back, covered in black grit and tears. Her blue eyes shone brighter than ever through the mask of destruction, wringing his heart. “It’s all sand out there. The leaves, the new pods, they’re falling off in my hands. All of them. Poison wind. We’ll die hungry.” Curling up, she hid her face in her arms.

“No we won’t. I was going somewhere when I came here, but I forgot about it when I saw your blue eyes. There’s a place, a big place, south of here, with water and food enough for all the people. It’s called the Citadel.”

“We had enough,” she sobbed. “But the black storm kills the ground.”

“Look. The sky has cleared. You remember those seven stars? The Sisters. That means two more cool moons. We can find it by then.”

They stayed one more day, salvaging what they could. Blue Gum dug up grubs and seed caches, coughing from the dust. Finally, she wrapped one of the snakeskin belts around her forehead, to lever up her matted locks and keep the sun off her face. Johnny dug out the sand hollow until he hit water again, and filled the CamelBak and Blue Gum’s frail, sandblasted plastic bottle.

Gumnut was just big enough that all three of them could start out in a moonlit line, holding hands.


	6. Dreams Made Flesh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The People Eater’s thoughts and the Wasteland’s economies of human flesh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS! Cannibalism discussion!  
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> And as close as you can get to cannibalism without the fateful chew!  
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> You read those warnings, right? If you're still queasy skip to the next chapter, which has Furiosa.

After the long, mad, wasteful day on the road, Immortan Joe's three-pronged convoy had settled down. They had expected that the Bullet Farmer would be back soon with the Wives. But it seemed to be taking a while. War Boys were touching up their white and black and collapsing in heaps to recharge for the next journey.

The People Eater remained in his limousine. He surveyed the camp hopefully, looking for his hapless driver/body-servant, sent out to scout.

The man returned, but he looked dismal. “No joy, sir. ‘Specially not with the Organic Mechanic in Joe’s crew.”’

The People Eater sighed and dismissed his driver. Settling down, he reclined his seat and farted mightily. He might as well get comfortable, since nobody was having a barbecue. He had anticipated that, perhaps, some of his own crew were preparing a morsel they couldn’t resist. Back in the day, he'd seen the great end coming, he had. He had eaten it all, while it was still there, when people were foodies instead of food. Then, one day, there was only one thing left to try. And it hadn't disagreed with him. He wasn't the only one, either.

Alas, despite the grilled corpses left behind them, it was not to be. The Gastown crew knew better, when surrounded by Joe’s war boys and the Bullet Farmer’s soldiers.

There was no long pig in the Citadel. None whatsoever. Immortan Joe, when asked, had surveyed his empire and declared, “This is a civilized place!”

Infuriated, the People Eater had sputtered, “They’re your slaves and lackeys!”

“My _willing_ slaves and lackeys. They beg and plead to serve me. Where else in this world can a man’s bones rest in peace?” Joe had a point. But then, the old hypocrite had sent his son, Scrotus, to him in Gastown – and unbalanced Scrotus did not share his father’ s scruples. Such an amusing lad, you never knew what he was going to get in his skull next. They’d shared some good times and good feeds. Still, sometimes, his very important work sent him on the road, and he had to make do.

He’d tried going around Joe to the Organic Mechanic long ago. Unfortunately for him, while Organic was a greasy opportunist in many ways, he was amazingly firm about no cannibalism. “I’m here to keep Joe’s crew alive. I’ve got enough Joe-damn problems without parasites and prion diseases and doubled-up radioactivity being traced back to my say-so. Deaders go up to hydroponics and that’s that. If you like eating the rest of our food, don’t ask again!”

The Bullet Farmer had gone right to the point. “No and never. If they can eat each other, what’s to keep them from eating me?” He snorted to remember it. That old canard. The Bullet Farm even sent their bodies back to the Citadel. They might get some dry jerky off Major Kalashnikov’s bones, the People Eater chortled, but nobody in their right mind would eat _him_. He was well aware of the rumors that said his vast, corrupt body was riddled with venereal disease. The joke was on them, he had leprosy!

The People Eater’s spies had told him that the Wretched who surrounded the Citadel, tolerated and mostly ignored by Joe, had a three-tier barter system for the bodies of the dead. Fine flesh was for the most spendthrift or ruthless. Most contented themselves with worms and grubs from human mulch, one sanity-saving step removed from cannibalism. Trepanned skulls were held up to catch Joe’s liquid largesse and tools were refitted with new bone handles.

He’d heard persistent rumors of an outpost on the other side of the Salt where they still had real pigs. If you listened to all the stories, you’d still find shopping malls, working helicopters, and foreign aid supply dumps there. They even said the lights were back on in Sydney. Ridiculous! Their little triumvirate, safely isolated on and fueled by the mineral treasures of Australia’s northwest, was as good as it got. Immortan Joe was right: this was civilization.

He settled down into an uneasy doze, trying not to think of lost, impossible bacon.

Suddenly, pounding on the limousine door woke him. He jerked the window down. “Yes? Is the Farmer back?”

“Not yet,” rasped a figure in the darkness.

The People Eater peered down. One of Joe’s Imperators was standing there, a long, dark burden slung over one shoulder. “I got something for you. The kind you like. Immortan Joe said to get it out of his sight. But I want guzzoline tokens. A lot of them.”

Intrigued, he said, “Show me.”

The Imperator jerked away some of the dark covering. Shining hair tumbled out over a pale, dead face.

The People Eater’s bloodshot eyes bugged out. Breath wheezed through his pewter nose. He fumbled in a leather satchel holding a minor fortune in guzzoline tokens, then gave up and opened the limo door to thrust the entire bag at the man. Swiftly as he could, they exchanged prizes. Then the People Eater slammed and locked the limousine door.

Hands shaking, he peeled open the bloodstained canvas that wrapped this precious, precious burden. He’d never cared much for Angharad, the epitome of Joe’s dull taste in women, with paltry limbs and meager dugs. But death had made her deliciously weighty. He trembled, twitching his chest-chain, picturing unspeakable delights. She should stay passably cool in the limo’s ventilated trunk. Until he returned to Gastown and his abode’s ferocious ovens.


	7. Bounty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Furiosa claims the Citadel, and Max seeks to claim a reward.

The Treadmill platform had just taken the women out of sight, freeing Max to look around.

He saw where the mob at the base of the Citadel was going, and went in the opposite direction. They wanted news, excitement, water. He needed a place to sit and think safely for a few minutes.

Ten minutes walk around one of the Citadel bases, a crevice into the stone looked secure. It would get shadier as the sun rolled on, too. His bum knee was acting up. The only thing that helped it was rest: he didn't want anyone to see him limping. Max ducked in and dropped.

So. Now what?

He was equipped half-decently for a change. He had a day’s dry tucker on him that he hadn’t had time to eat. His water bottle had bounced away somewhere, though, and that was bad. Along with no car. No ride. And new, impossible urges weighing him down, too vast to name. 

Just sitting felt good. He’d see if he could rest up a touch. Enough to get to whatever came next. 

Max leaned his head back to close his eyes against the blinding noon. Just for a moment.

“Excuse me? Excuse me?”

He snapped awake, standing before his eyes opened. The light had shifted, becoming more deep and golden.

Someone was in front of him, blocking his way, light behind them. “Are you waiting for a tattoo?”

“No!” he roared, stepping back.

His questioner was unperturbed. “I didn’t think I’d have many customers today.”

Max took stock of him and calmed down. This was a wiry little man whose arms, legs, and chest were covered in wiry little tattoos. They were even starting to creep up his cheeks and down to his tire-sandalled feet. He reached up and retrieved the plastic trug balanced on his head, then whipped off the towel that padded his baldness, right into the trug.

“Wordburger: always know where your towel is! You new to the mob?”

Max grunted.

“Swap you water for news.”

For a moment, Max worked his jaw. “Immortan Joe is dead. The Bullet Farmer is dead. The People Eater is dead. I saw all their bodies. Most of the cars that went out are now scrap. Your new bosses just got taken up in the only car left rolling.”

“You saw their bodies!” He fumbled with a bottle from his trug. “Five pieces of news is worth five good swallows.”

Max measured out the five gulps and handed the bottle back.

The man edged from foot to foot as he stood. “I can’t spare more water. But would you talk more?”

Before Max could reply, a strange sound cut through the afternoon light and dust.

 _FREEOOOOOOweeeep donk donk_. An unnaturally amplified voice bounced through the air. “Is this thing on? Tell the drummers…” A taiko drumbeat began to swell from the skull-mouth of the Citadel’s chief cavern.

The old man turned. “Whoever’s up there has found not-so-Immortan Joe’s announcement system. Let’s listen.” The dusty masses, used to the words from above, were shifting around, some going to the Treadmill drop, others closer to the cavern. Max took the opportunity to edge out of the niche. When the old man paid no attention at all, Max allowed himself to stay still.

The drums beat urgently, then stopped with a final boom. A man’s croaking voice began to bounce off the rocks. “I…am Corpus, the son of Immortan Joe. My father has gone to Valhalla with many of his War Boys. The Citadel is now under the command of Imperator Furiosa and the returning Sacred Wives.”

The crowd murmured and rumbled. From above, the sound system picked up some scuffle, and the voice changed. “I am Furiosa. Listen! Listen to me.”

At this first order, everyone hushed.

“The Citadel is ours, now. The Repair Boys and the Immortan’s son Corpus are with us. There will be more. We’ll be looking for strong…people.” She paused. “I know how much you - we - have suffered. But you have amazing courage. And…” The microphone caught a deep, rasping breath. Max knew she had to be in pain. He swayed forwards.

“And you can help.” Furiosa’s voice firmed. “If any come in from the desert, tell them who commands the Citadel now. Of those who rode with Immortan Joe, if any of them return, send them to the Treadmill drop. The same with anyone who comes from the Bullet Farm or Gastown. For those of you here already…the first change is that there will be a water drop daily. Every day. Each day at sundown. We will send down the first water drop at sundown tonight.”

Two water drops in one day? This bounty was unheard-of. The tattooed man couldn’t help joining the chant that shook the Citadel’s stones. “Furiosa! Furiosa! FURIOSAAAAA!” He turned to Max, beaming. “Wordburger: Brave New World. What a day!”

Max could say nothing for the life pounding in his throat.

The microphone was handed over again, amidst some garble of different voices. “He said his name was--” _squeeeeeeDONKDONK_ \- “Shhhh!”

Another woman spoke, her voice flatter. Max thought it was probably Toast. “Also, we are looking for a woman, and we are offering a reward. A reward for this woman. Her name is Miss Giddy. She was inside the Citadel three days ago. She is old, she has white hair, and she’s covered in little tattoos. Writing tattoos, all over.”

Max twitched. He’d seen a face like that pressed up against a pursuit vehicle window, during one of the chases. But he’d dismissed it as one of his stranger hauntings.

“There is a reward if she is returned to us unharmed.”

A reward! _A ride. Or even…_

“I repeat: a reward if she is unharmed. Come to the Treadmill drop at sundown.” The drums thrilled again, up to a final bang. The swell of two thousand people talking at once rose up to fill the air.

Max turned away from the babel to the old man covered in little tattoos. He flexed his back and drawled, “How about a visit up there?”

“It isn’t me.” He knotted his hands into grieving fists. “You don’t even know who she was! How we lost her!”

“In your tribe?” Max lifted his hands, opened. “I…think I saw her once. I think Joe hauled her along. I talked to those women up there. They swore by Miss Giddy.”

“You heard them talk about her?”

“Yes.”

His old eyes alight, he reached into his trug, taking out the bottle he had said he could not spare. “Tell me! I have to know - what happened to her? She’s been gone for years! What did they say?”

They were interrupted by a raucous yell. “It’s her!”

Max looked up. Enough of the Citadel’s mob to make trouble was starting in their direction, the leaders honing in on the old man and his tattoos. One of them said, “No, wait, that’s ol’ History. You got the wrong one.”

Another snarled, “Women goes bald. _I’m_ a bald woman! Get ‘er!”

Strategically, the man backed up to Max, clutching his trug. “I seem to have had an abrupt change of gender. Shall we see if I’m worth a reward?”

“Unharmed.” This, he could do. He reached down and raised the History Man up, and higher. “Sit on my shoulders. I’ll get us through.”


	8. The Last Page

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An alliance is forged at last. But how did the History Man know the tale of the Wives and Miss Giddy? Both a book and a body share a woman’s handwriting…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just finished the Furiosa comic from Vertigo and, seriously, how DID the History Man know all that? Here's what he told me.

After the History Man finished his stories, Corpus was still.

Finally, Corpus shrugged. “Enh. I heard a lot of that already. The hours I spent in Organic’s garage, him trying to doctor me up. Ugh. When Dad was angry he’d threaten to give me to the People Eater for a roasted dinner. It doesn’t change what’s happening now. Those women, our new bosses, don’t talk to me because of what I saw and know. They don’t kill me because they need me. If I tell them everything, I bet there’s a platter at Gastown with my name on it.”

The History Man gave a sly chuckle. “I haven’t told them everything myself. Who knows what they might do to me?”

At last, Corpus gave him a wry look of alliance. “You do tattoos?”

“Yes. They used to be better business than telling stories. Though minding the young ones was the best business of all. Would you like some? “Born Bad News”?” He lifted the plastic trug beside him (old habits died hard) and said, “I’ve got my needles and soot right here.”

“I always wanted some, but no way was I going to ask Organic. There’s a better rig downstairs, in the Organic Garage. Electric needles and clean ink.”

“Tempting. Shall we go down?”

“I don’t like it down there.” Corpus dimmed with disgust. “I’ll go get the rig brought up here. It’s wired in here. I feel like moving, or something, anyway.”

The History Man watched him go, an elaborate, whirring progress. Two War Pups fell in to shadow him, and he summoned more.

The History Man reached into the trug and removed a book he had found in the books he had been sorting from the Dome. It had been jammed inside another, larger book. Unlike the others, it was not printed, but handwritten. The writing was familiar to him. He could look down on much of his body and see it. Hundreds of reminders, every day. This fresh writing was water to his soul, though it described horrors. It was her voice. And now, he knew what had happened. 

He had kept telling himself he would show it to the women. After he had read it just one more time. Once he surrendered it, he doubted he’d see it again.

His mouth firmed. His secret had had its use. He glanced where Corpus had gone, and thought of their new alliance. All that talking, less use than one shared truth in breaking through. But the weakness behind both sides, and the truth being that they were both withholding – no. He could do better. Though it was nothing compared to what she had done. 

He flipped to the last page, while he still had the privilege, and read the last words in Miss Giddy’s journal.

NONE OF US ARE THINGS.

He closed the book, and touched his lips to the cover.

“I’m trying,” he whispered.

The dead old warlords had not been the only ones to do business at marked times. He went to find Furiosa in her hour.


End file.
